Death Trek

We folks, we all lived through the hike of death and although heat stroke claimed one of us, she was in good hands. This is after all, a medical trek.

The hike began quite steep as we descended into the Mai Chau Valley, trekking through tropical rainforest, using the local paths and passing through cornfields and terraced rice paddies. The difference in temperature was incredible-at least ten degrees warmer than the highlands. The local villagers were going about their own daily grind: tilling the fields in the heat, carrying things in cloth sacks from A to B, and herding water buffalo.

It was so hot, that time began to mean nothing to me. Sometimes Trent was in front of me, sometimes he was behind me. Sometimes he was talking about Australian bands, and sometimes he was telling me how to make a living as a filmmaker.

There was rain and steam, and then I woke up from my sweaty walking coma to find myself in Bao La.

I was underneath a house on stilts now and someone was offering me a suspicious looking coconut flavored ice-cream on a popsicle stick.

“I should not be eating this,” I thought. But my body was saying yes and there was no one to stop me. “I will pay for this later....”

The good news was that my bad karma did not cash in at this point in the trip. The bad news was that it was much too hot to sleep inside the houses on stilts. So Trent, Leah and I decided to cover ourselves in bug spray and sleep underneath the house, outside of the mosquito nets, on a wooden bed-plank, next to a fan that a very nice White Thai man plugged in right next to us.